A great interview with Anthony Bourdain about managing and leadership. I mention Bourdain’s book, Kitchen confidential in The art of project management. But this interview goes all out on the similarities between how pro kitchens work and how teams work.
“Every kitchen has one evil genius who’s tolerated—someone you turn to when all else fails—a rule breaker, a scamp who’s willing to make a hard and sometimes unlovely decision for expediency. There’s actually a name for this person—the débrouillard, the person who gets you out of a jam.”
Management by Fire: A Conversation with Chef Anthony Bourdain
It’s still a mystery how amazon.com sets its pricing, but the Myths of Innovation is at an all time low at $14.99 (Lists at $25) – this is 40% off the cover price.
No idea how long it will last – they don’t tell the authors these things.
Digital Web magazine has both a great review of The Myths of Innovation and a short, funny interview with yours truly about innovation, writing and more.
I’ve taught the tutorial How to innovate on time a few times now, and the big takeaway for most is the need to carve out time for failure. That’s right, failure.
Plenty of notable innovation quotes talk about the need to fail, for example:
If you want to succeed, double your failure rate. – Thomas J. Watson
Failure is the gateway to innovation – Ashley Ball
Whoever makes the most mistakes wins – Ralph Keyes
But few know how to convert that into action. How do you guide failure towards innovation?
The answer is 3 things:

Divide time into quarters instead and reserve part of the schedule for experimentation, prototyping and interesting mistake making.
Even if you don’t budget 25% of the project time, you can still offer a week, a day, a half-day, for individuals to experiment and try things out without requiring anyone’s approval. Even small windows of time are better than none (Also see hack day, for putting experimentation at the corporate level). Once the design phase starts the risk taking declines, but all decisions now benefit from the interesting failures during experimentation.
Slides from How to Innovate on Time tutorial (4MB PPT).
“This is a perfect book for managers all the way up the chain. It documents everything about the creative field that those in it know, and those who manage people in it have been conditioned to forget. If there is one book you pick up this year, pick this one up, read it, give it to your manager, and have him give it to his manager.”
- Bieber Labs
“While taking on the role of myth-buster; Scott provides insights into how innovations really happen and more important how they gain adoption. Like his first book The Art of Project Management (O’Reilly, 2005), Scott witty style makes the book easy and enjoyable to read. There’s much in the book that makes you rethink and question the common views of innovation.”
- Construx Software
“The Myths Of Innovation is an entertaining book that is easy to read and easy to understand. It makes you think before you assume. Although he debunks and destroys many myths, Berkun actually creates a set of insights that will help you come up with ideas…”
- BlogCritic.org